FIRST AN UPDATE:
If anyone cares, the way we score our family brackets is as follows:
One point for a first round win, 2 points in the second, 2 points for sweet sixteen victories, 3 points elite eight, 3 points final four wins, 4 points for a national champion selection. We also give 1/2 of the total for upsets (ie UNLV-7 over Wisconsin-2 was 2 and 1/2 points).
The family challenge currently stands:
ABL 34 1/2 (but I still have a chance to rebound with 7 of my 8 elite eight picks still standing)
RRL 36 (again, I still have a chance, just need my Vols and Commodores from TN to pull through with one more win as I chose these and neither of my other two competitors did.)
KJL sittin‘ pretty at 38 (He thanks all the big dogs that somehow managed to avoid many upsets in the first round)

Now a picture of a vintage outfit:

Can you believe that my brother wore those overalls more than 20 years ago? The colors are totally back in, so we made a showing at church. Either my mom or grandmother made this outfit, stitched with love. KJ sure made it handsome!

Finally a random about a motorcycle:
I have a thing for blatant disrespect for the law while driving. I do not think that a little speeding falls into this category, but I do think 100 miles an hour would qualify, as would crossing the solid white line just to merge quicker on the interstate, and would not wearing a seat belt. I saw one such display of blatant disregard this weekend- a motorcycle (single rider) in the HOV lane. How can you even make that kind of look ok? I was not in the HOV lane (although I could have been) and he did have a motorcycle buddy not far behind. Do motorcycles somehow qualify since I guess they technically are better for the environment or something? Isn’t that the purpose of an HOV lane- to encourage carpooling? Does anyone know something about this that would save me from the bitterness I have toward these motorcyclists? Random, I know.

Have a great night,
ABL

This hit me while running a couple of weeks ago with KJ and I’ve been chewing on it since then.

I should say, running then stopping then running then stopping then…(you get the idea). The stops were to try to console KJ who kept screaming at the top of his lungs because he did not want me out of his sight (and behind his stroller was out of sight). I was so frustrated. I just kept thinking, “All I wanted was 30 minutes of exercise, some tunes and some fresh air. Could you please understand and cooperate, could you please let Mommy have her way THIS ONCE?” [I should insert here that KJ is a nearly perfect baby…I mean seriously, so incredibly laid-back, which makes it all the more AMAZING that I was so frustrated by this isolated incident.]

Finally, I gave up, sat down in the grass, was about to pout, but instead prayed. Wouldn’t it be great if I could say right here “and magically, KJ just stopped screaming” but he didn’t. Instead, as I gave up on the run and we headed home, I thought “for this child I prayed”. I was dumb-founded. I did, I really did, PRAY for this child.

When the Lord finally brought me to a place where I could trust in him and just pray for a child in HIS perfect timing, I began to pray for our child like I have never prayed for anything. RRL and I prayed together so purposefully during this season. Shortly after this realization and relinquishment of control, we found out that KJ was on his way to us.

I almost laughed out-loud at myself for letting one rough day with him so overshadow the fact that Lord blessed me with a son, entrusted me with this gift, allowed me to be a parent. YIKES, how shallow am I? I know that the Lord blesses us each day, but some of His gifts are just so very obviously answers to our prayers. Being a mom was one such answered prayer in my life, yet sometimes I treat it with such flippancy.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There have been more rough days and many frustrating moments as I figure out this parenting thing. There will probably always be spoiled plans, nights interrupted, quiet time destroyed. But oh there have been sweet times, too. There has been immeasurable joy, unconditional love, laughter, tears, so MANY blessings all coming from this sweet child… this child for whom I prayed. When I do get frustrated I keep hearing those words and somehow even the frustrating times are a blessing.

Do you guys struggle with this? Not necessarily with your kids, but in all aspects of life, marriage, parenthood, friendship? Don’t we always tend to take blessings for granted and do more complaining than thanksgiving? Maybe this is an obvious thought, just been on my mind.

Ok– I know I’ve been on a serious kick. I’ll post pictures, too.

ABL

Ok, so after my drastic 1st post, R and I chatted some more and decided that pictures would be ok. So, here are a couple of my recent favs to give you some insight into our little man…

KJ is very intentional about his play time. He definitely laughs and giggles, but many times while he is playing he has this very intense “I’m going to figure this out if it kills me” look on his face. The above picture depicts the furrowed brow, focused eyes and stern concentration that we often see. When he gets this look you can say his name over and over and he WILL NOT look up from what he is doing. This picture shows one of his favorite things to concentrate on…banging any two objects together to make noise. Wood chips did not prove to be very powerful noise makers, though, and they were a little prickly.

He is the sweetest sleeper. I often sneak back into his room after he falls asleep to find him snuggled up like this with an animal of choice (I know, bad form for letting him have blankets and things in his bed).

Just thought I would give you a quick snapshot of one of our greatest joys- watching our son grow. What a privilege!

ABL

Back by popular demand…
Deep Rolling Right Field has returned!

Ok, I do not know how popular the demand really was, but I am back anyway. Many of you have kindly asked about my presence (or lack of) in the blogging world. I’ll admit, I do have the cutest little munchkin, and it is very sad that many of you live too far away to get to watch him grow…so i am back.

You might be asking,
“WHERE DID YOU GO? I still have a link to your old blog from my blog, but one day it just quit working”.

Well, it did not accidentally or mysteriously quit working. I deleted the old blog! We are to the point where we can laugh about this now, so I thought my new readers might enjoy the humor too. One of my last posts on the old blog was about my son’s favorite things. What he enjoys playing with, what some of his nicknames are, the tricks he can do, etc. In response, my sweet husband decided that he needed to share with me his concerns about putting too much information on the world wide web. An appropriate response from me would have been “I am so thankful that my husband has a job that allows him to learn so much and be so interested in technology and its benefits and draw backs. I am so glad that he is in tune with the things that teenagers are participating in so that he can better mentor them. I really should try to learn from his knowledge. Or, even if I disagree, I have a responsibility to submit to what he thinks is best for our family.” If only those had been the first thoughts that came into my head, maybe I could have controlled what came out of my mouth (I did not). Instead, I huffed and puffed and promptly DELETED my entire blog…I lost all the words that I carefully placed there about our family, my sweet grandmother’s passing, our son’s milestones…GONE. In thinking I was punishing him for being over-protective and unsupportive, I really only punished myself. Isn’t that how it always works!

So, it has taken me a little while to reconcile his views and mine and to swallow my pride enough to admit that maybe, JUST MAYBE, there was some validity to his concern. In an effort to meet in the middle, I am starting a new blog, but it does not have my full name as the address and I’m going to refrain from using our names in my posts. I’ll tell stories about our goings-on, but leave out details that we’ve decided as a family are too personal for WWW material.

Don’t hear me preaching- you do what you feel best on your own blog, but do please honor the fact that on this blog there won’t be names or places identified. Help me with that in your comments. I know I might be going a little overboard by not even saying our first names, but its just easier for me to draw the line at everything than try to muddle my way through the “grey” areas. My gmail address, and thus my posting name, still has part of my name in it. I’m not changing that- its impossible to cut out ALL personal information, I guess. And if someone tried really hard I’m sure they could put lots of pieces together about our family, but at the request of my husband, I’m just trying to not make it any easier than it has to be.

As for pictures, I’ll put up a password protected link soon so you can see pictures (i will need a little help from aforementioned amazing hubby for this one)! Stay tuned…

Ok, that was way too long of an explanation, but just thought i would answer all the questions at once and for maybe for the first time in my life I’m admitting to the WHOLE WORLD that I WAS WRONG…you heard it here first, folks.

My next post will be way more fun, I promise.

signing out the same way,
ABL